Chipping-Edge gring or Heat Treatment?

[David Stifle]

Thanks for explanation, Rick. I always thought a 350 tempering cycle was a snap temper. Now I know there is a much wider range of acceptable temps for tempering than I thought.

 

[Bill Burke]

I'm confused. You are tempering W2 at 350 degrees? I went with 425. Can someone clarify this?

Can't really offer much here David, I just started playing with w2 and developed a heat treat system that works for me.

=John Frank;
Thanks, Bill. Makes good sense. A couple more if you don't mind

1. I use a similar routine for thermal cycling/heat treat, save for the water quenching. How do you get around having your blades curve down on the oil quenches? I like the grain refinement, but this process always seems to make my nice straight bowies start to look like kukris

2. I am also assuming you get some reduced hardenability with such fine grain. Are you dealing with this with by using hamon/edge quenching, or are you sometimes going for full hardening? If so, how thick a cross section can you get full hard with this process?

Thanks again!

John the post forging quenches are full quenches not edge quenches. I usually only get turn dow when edge quenching. I Have not really noticed any reduced hardenability. WhenI test for hardness post quench the 65hrc file will not cut the edge.

Never tried to fully harden a W2 blade so I don't know how thick of a cross section I could get fully hard.